Kim Carr cleans up his office in 2022 after three decades as a Labor senator.Credit:Joe Armao
Carr,a senator for three decades and minister for seven years,writes in his bookA Long Marchthat a split in support for the Voice along wealth lines showed Labor was “losing touch” with the working class.
“The practical effect of the referendum was to pit one part of Labor’s broad coalition of support against the other,” Carr writes. Failing to pull out of the 2023 referendum once polls showed it would fail “was nothing less than a disaster”.
The former Victorian Labor powerbroker and internal Albanese opponent,who championed old-school left-wing causes such asdomestic manufacturing,left the Senate in 2022 after being pushed out byparty forces seeking renewal.
Unlike most Labor governments,Carr writes in his book to be released next month,Albanese was elected with a relatively weak mandate from a “small-target strategy” and a record-low primary vote thatcould drop even lower unless the party finds inspiring new policies.
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“The strategy in opposition under Albanese … had been to focus on a handful of policies rather than to promote a broad,far-reaching and ambitious agenda,” Carr writes.
“For Labor in coming years,the implications of this strategy will determine its ongoing viability as a party that exists to take office in its own right,not as part of a left-of-centre coalition.”